Rosetta Helene Menko, daughter of Jacob Menko and Amalia van Gelder, was the younger sister of Bernard Nathan Jacob Menko. She was born on 19 May 1908 in the Tuunterstraat 7 in Winterswijk too. She married Wilhelm Humberg in Winterswijk on 31 July 1928, who also earned his living as a cattle trader and was born on 12 September 1895 in Dingen Germany, located south of Bocholt as a son of Abraham Humberg and Rosalie Landau, who both had passed already before the war.
The couple Humberg-Menko had three children, viz. Margot, who was born on 9 August 1929 in Borken (D); on 24 May 1933 Vera Rosalia Amalia followed, who was born in Borken too and as third was born on 15 June 1935 in Winterswijk Jacob Abraham. The Humberg family had moved already on 5 December 1933 from Borken to Winterswijk to the address Weurden 88.
At the time of the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands, Wilhelm Humberg was “gesperrt”- exempted from deportation till further notice (bis auf weiteres) “because of Wehrmacht” and due to that, the entire family was temporatily exempted from deportation to the East. Only on 31 July 1943, the Humberg family was carried off from Winterswijk to Westerbork, where they had to wait another full month for their deportation.
On 31 August 1943 Wilhelm Humberg, his wife Rosetta Helene Menko and their three children Margot, Vera Rosalia Amalia and Jacob Abraham were put on transport to Auschwitz. Upon arrival in Auschwitz Rosetta Helene Humberg-Menko and her three children were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 3 September 1943.
Wilhelm Humberg was put to work as a forced labourer, although it is not documented where he finally has ended up, what kind of forced labour he had to do, nor the exact date of his death and where. Therefore, the Dutch Authorities after the war have officically established thatWilhelm Humberg has died in somewhere in Poland on 31 March 1944.
However, research by the Dutch Red Cross after the war, and described in the brochure Auschwitz part IV – deportation transports in 1943, published in October 1953, has shown that men from the transport of 31 August 1943, after arriving in Auschwitz, in October 1943 were deported to Warsaw there to clear the rubble of the destroyed ghetto. It can therefore be assumed that Wilhelm Humberg was also deported to Warsaw and there - as was later established - died on 31 March 1944 in Warsaw.
Sources include the website openarchieven.nl/Peoples Registry 1921-1938 Winterswijk/the Wilhelm Humberg family/registration 1921 and 1933; certificate of death nr. 279 for Wilhelm Humberg-made out in Winterswijk on 14 December 1951; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Wilhelm Humberg, Rosetta Helene Humberg-Menko and the children Margot, Vera Rosalia Amalia and Jacob Abraham Humberg; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and previous additions of visitors of the website.